Category: Updates

While we are working in the background on the next major update of Antispam Bee, today we released version 2.11.2.

Compatibility with PHP 8.1 and WordPress 6.1

As always, we’ve been keeping a close eye on ensuring Antispam Bee is compatible with the latest WordPress version. For WP 6.1, we didn’t have to make any changes this time. Instead, we addressed a minor issue with PHP 8.1. If you had Antispam Bee installed on PHP 8.1 but didn’t receive any spam yet (congratulations!), you might have been bothered by a nasty PHP warning. This will not happen anymore from now on.

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Today we’ve released Antispam Bee version 2.10.0. A complete list of changes is available on GitHub.

New country detection service

To enable Antispam Bee to filter comments by country of origin, we previously relied on ip2country.info as a data-efficient and free external service. Unfortunately, due to a change of ownership and related setup changes, our API connection to ip2country has been broken for an unknown amount of time.

Since the service is closing its doors in the future anyway and moving to a paid model, we switched to another service called iplocate.io. This is limited to 1000 requests per IP. If someone needs more, then a filter can be used to specify an API key for the paid rates, or another service can be configured.

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It took a while, but therefore the new version of Antispam Bee comes with quite a list of changes and enhancements. We will discuss the most important ones in this post.

Bugfixes

Of course, Antispam Bee is not free of bugs. But with every version we are approaching this goal. A list of all bug fixes can be found on GitHub, so here are only the most important ones.

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This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

Consider comment time” option in Antispam Bee

The idea of the time between writing and sending a WordPress comment has been with me for an eternity. However, I was not sure in which time the fastest (meaningful) comment can be submitted to distinguish it from a bot. Some time ago I did hundreds of tests and found out that spam bots need on average 2 seconds to fill out and send the comment form in WordPress. A human would never be able to do that, I claim.

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This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

The update brings two – in my opinion exciting – features. In detail:

1. Dashboard widget revised

Google Charts was used as a JavaScript library to display the spam history in the WordPress dashboard. For many plugin users, the Google “connection” was/is a thorn in the side (privacy concerns, etc.) – the number of real complaints increased. So I decided to swap the JS-Library. From now on, Raphaël takes over the coloring of the spam history.

2. Stop forum spam instead of Tornevall

Plugin users with the option “Consider public spam database” enabled will enjoy it. Reason for the change of the spammer database: Tornevall uses the same database as Stop Forum Spam, but the spammer data is not matched until hours or days later. And with spam, topicality plays an enormously important role, as the spam can be detected more reliably. Stop Forum Spam is definitely ahead. It is an internal plugin change, end users do not have to adjust anything.

The documentation is also adapted.

The update is now available in the WordPress-Admin. Good luck fighting the parasites 😉

This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

The announced update brings some enhancements to the plugin, which were developed from user feedback. In detail:

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This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

If you’d ask me, I would say, that I’ve become an expert when it comes to exclusive shoes, clothes and watches. Not to mention Viagra 😉

Since the last update for Antispam Bee 2 weeks ago, I’ve looked at hundreds of spam comments every day and tried to get another pattern from them. I could identify at least two common denominators that work reliably and trouble-free. After numerous tests these filters have now been put live.

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This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

Most of you have been in the sun today. I, on the other hand, have developed and implemented a solution for Antispam Bee which ensures that the exploitation of the recently published vulnerability in caching plugins W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache in WordPress comments is detected and suppressed by Antispam Bee.

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This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

In January 2009 I released the first version of the antispam plugin for WordPress. So it is 4 years ago. Four years of research and development. From insignificant small to world famous. Copied several times, never reached. With a total of 35 update cycles.

The current version not only brings a new Antispam Bee mascot. Also a function extension for even better spam detection is on board.

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This post originally appeared in Sergej Müller’s Google+ profile (in German) and is no longer accessible there. It’s now kept here by the Pluginkollektiv.

Yes, again an update for the antispam plugin for WordPress. The third one in the last weeks. But believe me, I publish updates not to annoy you, but to help you. Meanwhile, update cycles are as often as with the AntiVirus software on your desktops.

Recently, the volume of spam has increased enormously. Especially the techniques of spammers are becoming more and more sophisticated. I analyse the spam, react to user feedback, develop and test new defence mechanisms. It’s slowly becoming a full-time job, which robs me of a lot of free time 😉 Some people say I should change the plugin to paid. I won’t do that. It’s still working.

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